Penn officials criticize grad strike efforts at Columbia

Picketing continues today by graduate students in favor of unionization at Columbia University. While some Penn graduate students are pledging support, others on campus are more critical.

On Tuesday, between 60 and 80 teaching and research assistants joined the protests on Columbia's College Walk, and yesterday, undergraduate supporters took part in a walk-out organized by the undergraduate group Students for Environmental and Economic Justice.

On Penn's campus, many school officials and professors said that the situation at Columbia is an unfortunate one.

"I think it is a sad thing when one particular student group affects the opportunities of the other students at an institution, and I think that's basically what has happened there," University Provost Robert Barchi said.

Graduate students on Penn's campus voted in February 2003 on whether to unionize, but the results remain impounded because of a pending University-initiated appeal filed with the National Labor Relations Board. Protesting this appeal, Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania members held a two-day strike on the anniversary of the vote.

Barchi went on to say that the strike at Columbia does not affect Penn's standpoint against graduate student unionization.

"I think that nothing has been altered here," Barchi said. "I think that we have a fundamental philosophical difference of opinion with this group of students who has attempted to organize themselves into a graduate student union at Penn. We believe that the NLRB recognizes the difference and already indicated that there are substantial issues of concern raised by our appeal, and we will await their decision on that."

Barchi made note that the two-day GET-UP strike that was carried out earlier this year involved what the administration felt were "quite a small number of students that had no impact on" everyday University functions.

Other school officials have said that they disagree with the select group of Columbia graduate students' tactics of striking.

"As a graduate student and now as an administrator and instructor, I don't think the labor union model is the best way for students to collectively voice their concerns," Harrison College House Dean Frank Pellicone said. "Particularly when it comes down to the idea of striking, that seems an anathema to one's commitment to education."

"I don't think it's helpful," Pellicone said. "Undergraduates who come here and want to learn have the right to learn. ... I guess it's a matter of being appropriate, and I don't usually see it as an appropriate way."

Director of the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology Lawrence Sherman noted that Penn remained unaffected by February's strike "because we teach the vast majority of undergraduate credits with either standing or adjunct faculty."

"Penn appears to rely far more on very experienced teachers than most other universities, including many of our Ivy peers," Sherman said, arguing that the graduate student strike on the anniversary of the union voting "barely caused a ripple."

"If a similar strike disrupts Columbia, that will say a lot about the differences between Penn and Columbia," he added.

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